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Thursday, 26 January 2017

The year of the blanket

It all seems so long ago now when we talk about 2016 and yet we aren't quite at the end of January 2017. How time flies!

Looking back over some photos, for our group 2016 appeared to be a 'year of the blanket'. Many, many blankets were produced for babies, charity and for oursleves.

This got me thinking and the Chinese celebrate 'years' on a slightly different calendar to us and, on checking, 2016 was The Year of the Monkey and 2017 will be The Year of the Rooster. So for a bit of a laugh and on the theme of 'the year of' I decided to look a bit further.

Those born under The Year of the Monkey are ambitious and adventurous, helpful and confident, love to talk and are sociable. Monkeys are also thought of as being crafty and so are we although we hope it stems from a different definition of the word crafty!

People born under The Year of the Rooster are energetic, generous and hardworking, compassionate and talented, talkative and are happiest when they are surrounded by others. They also make very loyal and devoted friends.

I think that these qualities just about sum up the Wednesday evening Hookery ladies, don't you? The Hookery group is very talented as is evident by the vast array of crocheted and knitted goods they produce. They are also very community aware and honour efforts and sacrifices made by others as was shown by their Poppy Project. Many of us in and through the group have made, and also revived old, friendships.

It is the group's work with Pauline and John Tuff who are based in Tanzania which reveals their caring and passionate nature. Each year for the past 4 years the ladies have sent out initially hand made blankets and and then wool and needles first to a leprosy village, Samaria, where the women were taught to knit with the wool and accessories. Lately the blankets have gone to a children's home in Kazima, north of Taboro in Tanzania also run by Pauline and John.

I hope you enjoy looking at the colourful blankets below. Apologies for the poor quality of some of the photos but a mobile phone was used to take the pictures in some cases.